SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. iZ 



surveyor friend of mine described a half-fledged one that he tumbled across. 

 It had rolled out of its nest among the ferns, and fought like a cat when he 

 tried to pick it up. 



It is interesting to note that the mocking-birds of North America are 

 thrushes, and that our Lyre-birds are allied to the same family. They are well 

 known for their powers, not only of imitating other birds in the bush, but 

 also of copying such sounds as the sharpening of a saw, the chopping of an 

 axe, or the bark of a dog. 



With well-enforced protection against tail-hunters, there is no doubt that 

 the Lyre-birds would soon inci'ease and multiply in their forest surroundings 

 but for the fact that the fox has entered into their domain, and this deadly 

 enemy of all ground-nesting birds finds the nesting Lyre-bird and the baby 

 nestling easy prey. If, however, the Lyre-bird learns from this new 

 experience to build her nest in the fork of a tree well off the ground, as some 

 observers say she is doing, she may still hold her own in the scrub and fern- 

 tree gullies. A movement has been put on foot to capture a number of 

 Lyre-birds and turn them out in the fern-tree gullies on the slopes of Mount 

 Wellington in Tasmania, where there are no foxes, in order to save the 

 species from extinction, and to add to the charm of the Tasmanian bush. 



Through the kindness of a naturalist friend who, wandering through the 

 scrub at the back of Narrabeen Lake, had flushed a Lyre-bird off her nest, 

 I was able to make some careful observations of the nest and nestling. The 

 nest was built on the top of a shoulder-high cliff in a patch of bracken fern, 

 and it was quite a solid affair of sticks and fern leaves. The young bird 

 was thickly covered with dark down. The moment one looked into the nest 

 it gave an angry, frightened shriek, and fluffed itself up in the open nest 

 facing the visitors. The mother bird came flying up, but seeing us, she 

 dropped to the ground about ten yards away, and sheltered in the scrub. 

 The young bird every now and then gave his harsh cry, and the mother, after 

 a little while, came round the nest well into view. As long as we remained 

 quiet she did not seem very frightened. 



The Black Cockatoo {Galyptorhynchus funereus Shaw). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 20, No. 401 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 89, No. 188. 

 Though there are only five species of Black Cockatoos found in the whole of 

 Australia, three of them are common in this )State. The above species 

 {C . funereus), often known as the Yellow-eared Cockatoo, is the most common 

 and has the widest range, being found in Tasmania, the islands in Bass' 

 Straits, through the coastal ranges of eastern and South Australia, and 

 sometimes even finding its way in search of honey blossoms and insects inta 

 the more inland forests and mallee scrubs. Like all the members of the 

 cockatoo tribe, these birds nest in the holes or rotten branches of tall dead 

 gum-trees, in which the female lays two white eggs. Under ordinary 

 conditions they are true forest-haunting birds. Although their chief food 



